nokomis

wake, toad-
evil-chewer, moon-swallower
transforming darkness
to ordinary mud.

not for us, the glorious flowering
of shadows into light;
take out the pain and suffering
sin-eater, transmute agony into something plain,
from which flowers grow, and grass also.

goddess

i feel your hair under my hands-
i’ve run my fingers through the dead grass
brushed the grain-waving tangleclusters
at the end of the grey stems.
i feel the leather-tough insect-punctured leafskin
wet and blooming with colour

when i meet you again
in the breathless static darkness
little rain-rolled rocks will gleam at me
as you open all your eyes.

beaten coils

beaten coils

Originally uploaded by entheos

i need to walk the dying road
where the dying things are scattered,
handfuls of gems underfoot-
a corner gilded and flashing bone-bare
in the last weakness of sun.

the thread binds my way, pushes me
from death to death, psychopompos
looking for a way to catalogue each facet
of shining rot, of charming decay
to get it down in the books, and rest in winter.

(then there’s no dying, just dead.)
in this last half, then, I follow the dying things,
let my eyes fill with the motion of living to ash.

finding no place in the world
where I could lead the road
I sat down and opened my own self
to be an ending for this way.

leave alone the cages
with the animals inside, rattling the bars
- don’t become one of them, shaking
to discover love,
somewhere outside the boundary of your life.

unlock the door and walk out of the way you came in,
leaving behind those grasping freedom in both hands.
you don’t need it anymore;
when there is no question of a cage,
there is no want for being out of it.

ask me what I’m wanting,
I’ll tell you:
an arrival, a meeting.

but what do I fear?
leaving, being left.

when my foot leaves
your doorstep
I have just begun
the next greeting.

nyx

my head is bent to the earth,
my heart is bent to the earth,
my soul is starward, and wandering.

I am a tree in two worlds
or a serpent on land and water,
I see one way while I travel opposed.

one way of infinity is easy,
but backwards is also infinite,
thorn-choked and difficult to grasp.

I bridge night and day
in a nest of dusk and dawn.
the egg of the next world is beneath my breast.

I received the gift
and wept
because my hands were too full
to hold more;
kissed and mourned
that I couldn’t sing.
then you took
the cup from my hands
as I lamented
that I could not thirst
while drinking.

here,
be empty some while,
fill yourself hollow.

my hunger left, my mourning,
all the windows thrown back,
the door left ajar.
when you returned,
I heard you a long way far:
my home is ready,
the walls are ready to hold me,
the space is ready to hold me,
the heart is ready to hold me.

I have come this long way alone
not knowing I could look into the lake
and see the companion looking back at me.

my hand is empty, but the water
is moving and full
and the way behind me is closed,
and the hill has a door I cannot open.